The P2P corridor heads east out of the Ohio River port city of Parkersburg, along the North Bend Rail Trail, through small, rural communities like Cairo, West Union and Salem. Seventy-eight percent of the 150-mile West Virginia section is already complete, with a few key gaps in Wood, Harrison and Marion counties.

I caught up with Carol Coletta, senior fellow with the American Cities Practice at the Kresge Foundation, at the SXSW Cities Summit to talk about reimagining the civic commons—the Kresge Foundation’s initiative focused on revitalizing and connecting public places such as parks, plazas, trails and libraries. We chatted about shifting perceptions about these public places and managing them in ways that connect people of all backgrounds, cultivate trust and counter the trends of social and economic fragmentation in cities and neighborhoods.

Bobby Whittaker, president of Ferry County Rail Trail Partners, with 770-foot trestle over Curlew Lake in background | Photo by Rich Landers

It may be a no-brainer that Seattle-born Bobby Whittaker has always loved the outdoors, having been raised by the first American to summit Mt. Everest. It was the city’s music scene, however, that led him to a rewarding 25-year career, first with Sub Pop Records, and then as a manager and tour manager with iconic bands including Mudhoney and R.E.M. A decade ago, Whittaker read about a former rail line in rural Ferry County, Washington—a place he’d long been going to “slow down.” Now trail advocates in Ferry County are on their way to completing the 25-mile “rock n’ roll” rail-trail, which is changing people’s lives.

The North Bend Rail Trail out of North Bend State Park, near Cairo, West Virginia. | Photo by Jake Lynch

There aren’t many rail-trail stories like this. In the late 1980s, the abandoned CSX rail corridor that would one day become the North Bend Rail Trail was little more than an overgrown afterthought—a dumping ground, a place for derelict “partying,” an informal pathway for hunters and landowners in a densely wooded part of rural West Virginia. All that was about to change.

A national poll released this week found that 83 percent of all respondents support maintaining or growing the federal funding streams that enable active transportation--sidewalks, bikeways, trails and bike paths.